Security Blanket
by Neon Genesis
Summary: At night, he goes to her./It's strange that she sees him most clearly in the dark. Sasuke x Sakura. Oneshot.


**Security Blanket**

At night, he goes to her.

He jumps up on her balcony and slips into her room, silent as a ghost. He slides in beside her, lies close to her.

She's his reality.

Sasuke's world has been destroyed and redefined too often; too many times, the ground has been stolen out from under him. Sakura is real, is truth, is his constant. His security blanket, the one person who will always love and accept him—who will always welcome him into her bed, despite being offered nothing in return.

In the dead of night, his defenses are stripped away, leaving him vulnerable to his memories, his sins, his demons. They steal his sleep and plague his mind, laying siege to his last standing stronghold of sanity.

Sakura banishes them. Her warmth, her scent, her body pressed up against his, solid and reassuring. She gives him peace, and comfort, and ground to walk on. She's dependable; he trusts her to be his, to always be there when he needs her, even when, for so long, he was never there for her.

He can count on her—can count on her eyes to be green, her smile to be warm, her love to be his. She's his always, unalterably affectionate and unswervingly loyal.

His fingers trace her side, skating over her skin from her throat to her knee. It's not sexual, what they have. Sometimes it's close, on the brink, straining at the seams.

But Sasuke depends on her, on _this _too much to let it go in that direction. He needs to be able to just lie there and hold her, let her hold him, and be free of commitments and complications and worries.

He needs her.

He breathes her in, not her perfume or body wash or even shampoo—her natural scent of lemongrass, and rosemary. It's familiar and comforting and entirely addictive, leaving him with his face pressed up against her throat.

He's come to know her body well, to memorize it. The slope of her shoulder, the curve of her thigh. He presses close and figures out exactly how they best fit together, what pieces go where to form the whole.

She's his security blanket, his reality, his truth, his peace, his constant, his always.

His everything.

~x~

She used to find him in her bed sporadically, irregularly. Now he's there every night, pressing up against her, huddling close to and leeching off of her warmth.

Naruto had found his way into her bed some nights as well, after difficult, bloody missions. She follows the route of Sasuke's jaw with her finger and understands the appeal of having someone _there_, someone to be with you and stay with you through the night.

She's glad that he chose her.

Having him there is like a security blanket, reassuring her that all of those years of trying and missing and wanting were not in vain, that he cares for her too. That he wants to be with her too, if only until dawn.

It's like a dream, to open her eyes and find his face inches from her own, still and breath-stealing and wrenchingly lovely. He's beautiful, and in these moments, he's hers.

It's strange that she sees him most clearly in the dark. The Sasuke that folds around her on her bed is vulnerable and lost and needy and so terribly, terribly human. She thinks that maybe this one is more real than the one of daylight, with his coldness and apathy and distant eyes.

That maybe this has been her Sasuke-kun all along.

During the day, they don't talk about it, never mention it, wouldn't dream of discussing it. The nights they spend together are sacred and precious, not meant to be defiled by words that cannot encompass what it's all about.

Even Sakura isn't sure what it's really about, but she hopes that at least a small part of it is about her, and him.

It's hard, sometimes, to refrain from kissing him. To keep her hands from wandering too liberally. She won't risk the fragile, silent bond that they've formed, not even when she aches for him and he's _right there_, but she can't have him.

She contemplates her own selfishness, her greed. What he gives her is never enough. She wants more, she wants everything—all of him.

But she'll take what she can get, will always readily accept what he offers up, and these nights of being with him are, she thinks, the closest thing to heaven in the world they live in.

She touches her forehead to his, breathes his breaths, and wishes to be closer.

* * *

Couldn't sleep. (Story of my life.) Another quiet, gush-y little piece. I have too many already, but whatever. Hope you enjoyed at least a little bit. :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing that is not mine.


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